The Mariners’ have a potentially key development from huge weekend

The Seattle Mariners showed up in the bright lights over the weekend, pulling off a three-game sweep over the New York Mets that culminated with a 12-1 rout on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball.

Mariners Breakdown: Looking back at an emphatic sweep

An impressive showing on offense is understandably getting a lot of the attention, as is the dominance of the Mariners’ starting pitchers who led the way as Seattle outscored the Mets a combined 22-1 in the series.

Those are both important developments for an M’s team still jockeying with the Houston Astros for first place in the AL West. But they may not be the biggest coming out of the weekend, as Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk discussed on Monday morning.

The last pitcher to throw in Sunday’s nationally-televised Mariners win was rookie Troy Taylor, who had been called up just a day before from Double-A Arkansas. The 22-year-old UC Irvine product struck out a pair of Mets batters while working around a walk to get the final three outs of the sweep, and his MLB debut had both Mike Salk and Brock Huard raving the next day because of a need the M’s still have with the trade deadline now a couple weeks in the rear-view mirror.

Two strikeouts during your big-league debut on @espn’s Sunday Night Baseball? That’ll do.

Congrats, Troy Taylor! pic.twitter.com/h1T1LzJeOa

— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) August 12, 2024

“Seriously, how badly does this team need another leverage reliever?” Salk asked rhetorically. “Real bad. How many relievers in the pen do you trust right now?”

Brock Huard responded with a few names: recent trade additions Yimi García and JT Chargois, plus All-Star closer Andrés Muñoz, whose appearance in Saturday’s 4-0 win was a Mariners franchise record 11th in a row without allowing a hit. Salk added in that Collin Snider had impressed as of late, too. But with offseason pickup Gregory Santos on the injured list, it’s clear the Mariners could use another arm who can protect a lead or keep Seattle close in the late innings of a tight ballgame.

Troy’s big debut

It’s far too early to tell if Taylor fits the bill of a leverage arm, but his outing on Sunday was hard to ignore. So is the fact that after starting the season just up the road with the High-A Everett AquaSox, he bypassed Triple-A to join the Mariners bullpen just months later for the stretch run.

“I don’t know whether he is (the high-leverage reliever the Mariners need) or not, one outing doesn’t yet make a star,” Salk said, “but you don’t get called up from Double-A unless you’ve got something. When you call up a random guy, the Mariners PR staff doesn’t make a whole thing about it on social media. Like, this dude’s got something.”

Huard picked it up from there.

“His ‘something’ is his stuff. His ‘something’ is a couple pitches of pitch quality that they know, and it’s what the Mariners have always known (is good). And it’s why these guys, the (Bryan) Woos and the (Bryce) Millers, get called up from Double-A and they get that plane ticket. That must be a nice one, to go from Arkansas to Seattle. … You don’t have just something. You’ve got a couple of pitches and you’ve got stuff that can play on any planet, and his did with a couple strikeouts yesterday. Pretty cool.”

Brock and Salk airs from 6-10 a.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports. Listen to their full conversation about the Mariners in the first segment of the podcast at this link or in the player near the top of this post.

Mariners coverage from Seattle Sports

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• Watch: Three Mariners web gems, including spectacular double play
• Could Mariners’ walkoff win end up being the jolt they need?
• Watch: Each of Mitch Haniger’s Mariners-record eight walkoffs
• A rising, under-the-radar Seattle Mariners prospect to watch

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